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In Austin, Texas, the IBM Watson Food Truck served up dishes at South by Southwest (SXSW), Thursday, March 6, 2014.

June 19, 2014

Can a Computer Cook?

by Rebecca Rupp

Computers, it seems, have been edging up on us ever since the early 1800s, when Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace collaborated on the Difference Engine, the first mechanical computing machine.

In the 1957 movie Desk Set, brainy Katharine Hepburn trounced a version of ENIAC, the world’s first electronic general-purpose computer—she was far better than it at recalling the names of Santa’s reindeer—but since then it seems to have been all downhill for the human race.

Watson’s specialty is answering questions—but it’s far cleverer at it than are search engines such as Google or Bing, which simply spit out a long list of links and expects us users to dig out the solution for ourselves. Instead, Watson delves into its immense digital database, using multiple algorithms to analyze a question in hundreds of different ways, and generating hundreds of possible solutions. It then ranks these in order of probability to come up with—if not the one single correct answer—at least the best possible educated guess. Scientists refer to Watson’s modus operandi as cognitive computing. Watson, in other words, may think somewhat like a human brain.

Generating a new recipe, it turns out, is no simple feat. Given the number of available ingredients and flavors, there are easily a quintillion—that’s a one with eighteen zeroes after it—different ways in which to put foods together in a dish, and no human cook can possibly evaluate them all. Watson’s gargantuan memory bank and lightning speed, however, are more than equal to the task—and it turns out that Watson can be creative, too.

Shrimp and Licorice? Caviar and White Chocolate?

Watson’s cooking expertise begins with its backlog of some 35,000 recipes, which collectively provide basic information about food composition and flavor pairings. (What’s a quiche? What’s ratatouille?) It also knows the molecular chemistry of over a thousand different flavor ingredients—everything from black tea to Bantu beer—and has input from the racy-sounding field of hedonic psychophysics, which quantifies the tastes and flavor sensations that people tend to like. (Shrimp and licorice? Caviar and white chocolate? Blue cheese and rum?) Watson’s mission, based on these data, is to invent recipes that are both yummy and unconventional. And it looks like it’s succeeding.

Given a theme and a description—say “Spanish” and “breakfast bun” or “Thai” and “sweet potato”—Watson can come up with any number of suggestions with lists of novel ingredients. Its culinary mix-and-matches have produced such unexpected combos as bearmeat with saffron and sandalwood, avocado Napoleons, and an off-the-wall kebab featuring pork, chicken, strawberries, shitake mushrooms, pineapple, apples, curry, green onions, carrots, lemon, lime, and mint. Other Watson inventions include Creole Shrimp-Lamb Dumpling, Baltic Apple Pie, Austrian Chocolate Burrito, and Bengali Butternut BBQ Sauce, this last a scrumptious-sounding blend of white wine, butternut squash, rice vinegar, dates, cilantro, tamarind, cardamom, and turmeric, plus such old-time BBQ standbys as molasses, garlic, and mustard.

Are Machines Making us Obsolete?

Watson’s promoters also see cognitive cooking as an opportunity to promote healthy eating—by coming up with inventive recipes that are low in fats and sugars, or specifically targeted at the diabetic, the lactose-intolerant, or others with special dietary needs. Perhaps, with Watson in their corner, school lunch providers will be inspired to move away from chicken fingers and Sloppy Joes.

Proposed possibilities for cognitive computing are now legion, extending to any field that requires rapid analyses of large and tangly amounts of data. Watson may find a niche, for example, in the healthcare system as a medical diagnostician, in biopharmaceuticals as a predictor of new and effective drugs, as an analyst in the sales and travel industries, as a consultant in the home-buying market. It may even eventually be able to help you find a job.

In our computer-dominated world, it can be nervous-making to contemplate our own clumsy capabilities. Is there anything we’re good at that computers aren’t? Are machines making us obsolete? Are our hard drives secretly laughing at us up their electronic sleeves?

According to researchers, there still are a few skills in which humans have it all up on computers. We’re better at pattern recognition. We’re more emotive. We’re more innovative. We tell better stories. And we’re better at non-routine physical tasks such as gardening, portrait-painting, cabinet-making, and fly-tying—and, of course, cooking, which is why Watson leaves the real in-the-kitchen work to a battery of trained chefs.

In the realm of food, however, people have one magnificent advantage over even the biggest and brightest of electronic brains. Computers may be brilliant when it comes to designing recipes. But people can eat.

Trackbacks

[…] As computers seem to be taking over the world, we may find ourselves with a new frontier of possibilities. Like the Jetson’s family home which pumps out culinary creations, this technology may be right around the corner. Learn about how computers are gaining cognitive cooking skills in the kitchen, and what sorts of meals they’re creating. Read more. […]

[…] Ice cream cones are about one of the handiest things ever. If they weren’t filled with droopy ice cream, they might be a bit better when you’re late and needing a snack (we all know what happens when you’re late). So these savory ditties are sturdy enough to hold just about anything. Awesome! You control what you eat, but how it’s transported and delivered is all thanks to the cone. Read more. […]

At the intersection of science, technology, history, culture and the environment, we're exploring the global relationship between what we eat and why.

About Rebecca Rupp

Rebecca Rupp has a Ph.D. in cell biology and biochemistry, and is the author of more than 200 articles for national magazines and nearly two dozen books, both for children and adults. Her most recent book, How Carrots Won the Trojan War—an overview of the history and science of garden vegetables—won the GWA Gold Award as Best Garden Book of 2012. She lives in northern Vermont and attempts to be open-minded about everything except centipedes and lima beans.

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